Apparently having "backbone" on immigration reform and Common Core does not preclude spinelessness on matters of seeming insignificance. I say seeming insignificance because … is it genuinely insignificant that Bush is either 1) lying, or 2) admitting to willful ignorance, or 3) revealing his intolerance of disagreeable ideas?

I suspect he's lying, although ignorance and intolerance are prideful traits among the right. I mean, what conscientious conservative could refuse the delightful ramblings of eminent truth-seeker David Brooks — whose "truth" always seems to nonetheless revert to National Review's — or the medieval Catholicism of the priggish Ross Douthat? I can certainly understand Jeb wanting to bypass Paul Krugman's macroeconomic expertise, since both modern economics and expertise of any sort are antithetical to cherished conservative fictions, and God knows Maureen Dowd is, in the Bush family, That Woman who shall never be named and absolutely never read.

Still, as noted, the Times does offer conservative catnip, which I read with addicted regularity. At times, I even agree with some of it, which can be tormenting. But how could I know if I agree or disagree if I don't fucking read it? How could I ever rattle my little intellectually comfortable world and question my beliefs and subject myself to Socratic self-examination if I remain at arm's length from anything that might make me think?

Far more critical, since he aspires to the Oval Office: How could Jeb?

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence may in fact "abhor discrimination," as he just insisted in a panicked press conference. And I've no doubt that most Hoosiers are a "loving, kind, decent, tolerant people," as Pence put it. But his further insistence that Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act was not designed to deny service to gays and lesbians was sheer humbug.

The Indiana law pointedly "frees" businesses to exercise a religious right to discriminate and deny service. It's right there, in the bill, which is more of a pandering political document for the religious right than it is any sort of thoughtful legislation containing mere oversights. The NYT:

While these laws [such as Indiana's] do not mention gays or discrimination, the timing is no accident. As bans on same-sex marriage fall, those promoting such laws have made no secret of their desire to protect conservative Christian individuals and businesses, such as caterers and florists, who choose not to sell services to same-sex couples.

Does that passage reflect, as Gov. Pence charged again today, the sloppy reporting that's been done on Indiana's law? If so, the slop is indeed ubiquitous, though it also invariably, and rather inconveniently, contains legal opinions from experts who agree that the law is discriminatory.

There's a well-known rule in right-wing politics: Never ever say what you mean, when what you mean to do is coddle the crackpots, fanatics and bigots (i.e., the hardcore base). This, Mike Pence accomplished. Well done, Governor.

As House Republican leaders weigh whether to try to force former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to hand over her personal email server, experts say the messages she deleted from it — or at least portions of them — can almost certainly be recovered.

Half a dozen computer forensics experts interviewed by Politico said remnants of Clinton’s emails likely still exist on the server, although retrieving them could be time intensive and expensive.

Expensive? Yes. But, the point being? Republicans possess unlimited taxpayer funds, with which no Republican investigation is, by definition, ever fraudulent, wasteful, or abusive. As for time, they've plenty of that, too. After all, it's not like they're busy, you know, legislating.

Andrew Sullivan "expressed relief" Sunday night to journalist Jeff Greenfield "that he wasn't forced to cover the recent controversy over Hillary Clinton's emails." Added the scribe: "I couldn't imagine blogging the next election. I will not spend another minute of my time writing about the Clintons. Period. Or the Bushes."

Although I'm in accord with Sullivan's weariness over yet another Clinton-incubated Clinton controversy which somehow became (Clinton controversies always do, by Palace Guard design) a sinister plot hatched by mysterious forces, I can't imagine not blogging the next election. I haven't any ideas on what I'll do in 19 months — more on that momentarily; plus, the impoverishment of blogging gets to be even more tiresome than the Clintons — but throughout the next 18 months I'll belch at least a half-million words on the greatest, most exhilarating, most depressing show on earth. And probably piss off or permanently alienate every last reader in the process.

Ideologically I'm something of an odd duck, in that I both detest ideology and subscribe to socialism's (what little is left of it, that is). This puts me outside the tribal allegiances that most political blogs feel compelled — often for financial reasons, also — to honor. Consequently, I've no more of a sis-boom-bah attachment to Hillary Clinton than I possess for Jeb Bush. They are both, in my opinion, yesterday's hacks of impeccably calculated worldviews and invigorating only in their gaffes, although I'll say this much for the conservative: when it comes to breaking with party orthodoxy, he's gutsier than the liberal. That confession pains me, in that it announces the death of creative and derring-do liberalism, the closest thing there is to my admitted muddle of conservative-progressive democratic socialism.

Which brings me back to 19 months from now. After 18 months of amused, cyberprinted observations on Hillary's managerial blunders and self-made controversies and political banalities, can I tolerate four more years of it? Not to mention four more years of yawn-provoking Republican obstructionism of even her yawn-provoking banalities? Such, I gather, is the weariness that Sullivan feels, and I share. Even the intense polarization of the 1850s sectional crisis had an end to it, whereas American politics today seems hopelessly, eternally stuck in a standoff. I should stress it only seems that way; this will come to an end, but it'll take a couple decades, I fear, and we're only about halfway through.

March 30, 2015

It's hard to imagine that Granholm's reaction to O'Malley's critique landed very well in the former Maryland governor's camp. No matter what O'Malley does next, rhetorically speaking, when it comes to Clinton, she and her team would be very well-advised to avoid the "how dare you criticize us" and "you'll pay for it" lines of response.

Earlier in his piece, Cillizza portrays Jennifer Granholm's "reaction" ("He better watch it") as a "joke." That rather generous depiction, however, is abruptly betrayed by Cillizza's later, somber advice … to knock it off. Nothing could be unfunnier than a privileged courtier identifying, outright, though in supposed "jest," what everyone dreads: the queen's delicate sensibilities.

Cillizza says it's hard to imagine that Granholm's quip sat well with Team O'Malley. True. But it's even harder to imagine that Bill Clinton or John Podesta or whoever is Team Clinton's latest sensitivity trainer is having so little success in teaching just plain fucking commonsensical behavior to the troops.

The Clinton camp oozed buckets of smugness in 2007, and nearly as much in its self-destructive year of 2008. Indeed, next to Sen. Hillary Clinton's witless support of W.'s insane war, smugness was perhaps the campaign's greatest and most pervasive defect. One would think that, by now, it would be banned in Hillaryworld to the same extent and with the same, fierce determination that the Obama White House has banned any mention of "Islamic" terrorists.

But, no. Here they are, they're back, smugly assuming that all the marbles are theirs — and Hillary hasn't even yet left the gate. It's one of the true wonders of our ancient political world.

I'll never understand Jim Webb's cautious strategy; his refusal, that is, to engage the enemy within.

Why is Martin O'Malley — not Webb — suddenly being hailed as a "real, actual, credible" challenger to Hillary Clinton? Because he took the first swipe at her, on national TV. That's why.

And that's all it took to stir some buzz and unleash real, actual, credible speculation about the former governor's possibilities. (Predictably, the Clinton camp didn't help its candidate by attempting to exercise its usual, royal censorship: "He better watch it,” said hatchetwoman Jennifer Granholm of O'Malley and his mildest of coronation criticisms.)

As CNN notes, O'Malley's "shots at Clinton have been the most direct of any of the party's likely challengers" — adding, almost comically, that "Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders [has sought] to avoid the topic of Clinton at all costs." As has Webb. And all it has earned him is continued obscurity.

Today, the O'Malley camp is likely being bombarded with broadcasters' requests for interviews, which is to say, free media. They could have been Webb's, and his ticket to sudden notoriety. I just don't understand his strategy.

Although he goes on to do just that, commenting is frightfully unnecessary, in that this sort of rubbish has become the seemingly inextinguishable, demagogic mainstay of one of our two major parties. Paul Krugman:

There’s a lot of fuzzy math in American politics, but Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, the chairman of the House Rules Committee, recently set a new standard when he declared the cost of Obamacare "unconscionable." If you do "simple multiplication," he insisted, you find that the coverage expansion is costing $5 million per recipient.

("The actual cost per newly insured American is about $4,000," notes Krugman, before he goes on to lament our "post-truth politics." Concerning which: If you haven't detected it by now, you never will.

"A candidate who is battle tested in the primary is inevitably stronger in the general election, Iowa Democrats said in numerous interviews with CNN."

I've never been a proponent of this particular political hypothesis. It's counterintuitive because, on whole, it's historically counterfactual; primary brawls often leave nominees bloodied, drained of resources, atop a divided party and in the thick of internal rebukes, which are exquisitely useful to the other nominee. Ask Al Gore and John Kerry if they found their Bradley-Dean battles rejuvenating.

None of this is to say, however, that primaries brawls are ill advised. For want of a Barack Obama, we would have had Hillary in 2009, no healthcare reform, and quite possibly another war. Primary battles are far less about honing candidates' strengths than they are about elevating the ideal nominee and the better presidential material.

Indeed, Hillary's 2007-08 battle principally served to highlight her weaknesses: extemporaneous foolishness, poorly veiled personal attacks that only boomeranged, and a penchant for not minding the store, or anyone in it. Her real recommendation became apparent only after her loss: She helped pull the party back together — a self-interested act, but still a noble one.

At any rate, whatever the pro-and-con arguments for a Democratic primary battle in 2016, it seems that Democrats might, after all, get one.

This is thin gruel to feed on, but Martin O'Malley's "This Week" performance provided at least some basis for a brawl (which, advisable or not, junkies always want). "The presidency of the United States is not some crown to be passed between two families," said the former Maryland governor to a shocked Stephanopoulos. "It is," he added, "an awesome and sacred trust to be earned and exercised on behalf of the American people."

O'Malley's was a well-crafted, sublimely rehearsed pitch. I myself also found it rather bland; then again I like my politics gloveless — even though I sadly know, in my darkest of spectating hearts, that politicians must pretend that even their fiercest opponents are but a disembodied abstraction. O'Malley's talk of inherited crowns and exchangeable dynasties was merely theoretical; you know, just in case such an abomination were to ever present itself.

But golly gee, Stephanopoulos saw through that act, and in a news-making way, he was delighted. For the rather sedate, heretofore utterly harmless and seemingly veep-seeking O'Malley, his philosophical musings were guns blazing. It seems the governor does intend to make a fight of it; and by summer, he might even think of some actual, human examples of mostly hereditary eminence.

March 29, 2015

On the day of Ted Cruz's presidential announcement, talk radio's reputed kingmakers embraced the Texas demagogue as Milton's Beelzebub did Satan. Laura Ingraham adored Cruz as “Reaganesque”; Rush Limbaugh declared that Cruz’s opposition was "so dazzled" by his covenlike Liberty speech that "they were worried the guy is superhuman"; Mark Levin assaulted Fox News' Philistines for "trashing" Cruz; Sean Hannity, on his wireless show, proclaimed that any underestimation of Cruz's magical powers "is beyond foolish"; and Glenn Beck, interrupting his dark fasting and praying, babbled that "the GOP is about to be radically surprised — I think the groundswell for someone like Ted Cruz is going to be enormous."

Well, I must say, things sounded pretty damned good for the loudmouthed Lucifer from the Lone Star state.

Going above ground and into the secular splendor of earthly reality, however, we encounter Suffolk University's polling of likely GOP primary voters in New Hampshire, conducted March 21-24. On the 22nd, Cruz tweeted his intention to announce, and he announced on the miasmic Virginia morning of the 23rd; thus more than half of Suffolk's polling window had espied the Second Coming of … whatever. The results?

Sure, one can dismiss Suffolk's poll as one surveying merely the Puritan-stock outpost of New Hampshire. But come on: For Cruz, at the most vivid height of his unholy rebellion against the celestial Establishment, to tie with a D.O.A. candidate and actually trail another who has no intention of even getting that far is, well, kinda sad. For the Texas demagogue, superhuman idol of snake-handlers, worshipful blockheads and reactionary black massers, there shall be no paradise lost, for it was never within reach.

This much we knew. But what does it say for the right's soi-disant kingmakers who waft through the airwaves like Salem's witches? What it suggests, I submit, is that their little underworld village was built not by any great or occult powers, but by Potemkin.

March 28, 2015

Never mind Hillary Clinton's Obama hires, who may, or may not, assist her in breaking with infamous chaos and managerial disorganization past. For her chief consultant seems to be an even truer voice of ruthless efficiency: Pat Buchanan, he of Nixon's campaigns and memorable maladministrations. Burn the tapes! was Pat's pragmatic, albeit justice-obstructing, advice to his ethically stunted boss. You got yourself a records-kept problem? Destroy the records and you destroy the problem — (theoretically).

Such has been the pro-Nixon consensus for decades: If only Dick had listened.

Well, Pat's latest protégé has.

"To avoid prolonging a discussion that would be academic," writes Hillary's lawyer, David Dean-Colson-Haldeman-Erlichman-Kendall, to a congressional investigative committee, "I have confirmed with the secretary’s IT support that no emails … for the time period January 21, 2009 through February 1, 2013 reside on the server or on any back-up systems associated with the server."

It has been wiped clean; the tapes, so to speak, have been burned. Problem gone. Take that! Trey Gowdy and John Boehner, as well as Jason Chaffetz and every other hyperpartisan sleuth on Capitol Hill — all of whom, given an absence of evidence, are now sure to let this matter drop. Right?

That, of course, becomes the new problem for Hillary — or rather a fresh investigative opportunity, just as it would have 40 years ago for another congressional committee, for which Hillary worked. "Gowdy said that Clinton’s response to the subpoena means he and Speaker John Boehner will now contemplate new legal actions against Clinton."

It requires little imagination to look down the road at 2017 or '18, when "new legal actions" morph into impeachment proceedings against another President Clinton. In realistic terms, impeachment is more a political act than a legal one. And by 2017, having lost the White House again and thus having throttled themselves up into the very highest overdrives of madness, the people's fanatics in the almost-certain Republican House majority will be looking to nip that Clinton in the bud — and create a whole new circus. After all, what's to worry? The "worst" that could happen is that they'll gain more seats in the 2018 midterms.

Naturally, on 20 January 2017, congressional Republicans will convene in packs of carcass-hunting jackals anyway. For that, one can't blame Hillary. But one can regret that, Nixonlike, she just keeps leaving them a scented trail.

March 27, 2015

One of the many benefits of the grotesque sideshow of Ted Cruz's presidential candidacy is the immeasurable number of related but more rewarding sideshows in the making. For instance there's Peter King's statement today regarding telephone calls made by Cruz supporters to his congressional office, which he broadly characterizes as "severe cases of arrested development" marked by "vulgar, rabid and adolescent-type" language. King's statement proceeds:

"The puerile language used is what most kids outgrow and move beyond when they reach sophomore year in high school…. The fact that women and young interns in my office have to listen to these perverse rantings is particularly shameful.

"We must ask why he has such an unusual appeal to this low denominator in American politics."

We can ask, but the answer has always been with us: It's the Authoritarian Personality calling — frustrated, intellectually insecure, loud-mouthed bullies who crave exclusive power and thus everyone else's submission. More economically put: the cryptofascistic type.

Politico's piece on Ted Cruz's electoral chances reads like one of those in-the-can obituaries, just waiting for the poor guy to perish:

Not one of the 100 respondents [from "a bipartisan group of key activists, operatives and thought leaders in New Hampshire and Iowa"] believes that Cruz would win the Iowa caucuses or New Hampshire primary if they took place this week.... And nine out of 10 Republican insiders in the early states believe Ted Cruz couldn’t carry their state … against Hillary Clinton in the general.

Meanwhile, and elsewhere in Politico, Rand Paul is calling Cruz, as well as Sens. Rubio and Graham, "irresponsible and dangerous," in that they "argue that they are fiscal conservatives and yet would simply borrow hundreds of billions of dollars for defense." Sen. Paul also wants to throw additional hundreds of billions at the defense department, although he wouldn't borrow it. He'd steal it, from "aid to foreign governments, climate change research and [through] crippling reductions in the budgets of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the departments of Housing and Urban Development, Commerce and Education."

Hence GOP primary voters really do have a choice: Which species of madness do you prefer?

As for Politico's piece on Cruz's doom, it provides us with "six takeaways," at least one of which is hilarious: "Enrolling in Obamacare has not conveyed the message Cruz hoped."

Let's just hope that Harry Reid's decision to quit isn't a commentary on what he sees as Republicans' favorable odds of holding the Senate, thus denying Reid a return to majority-leader status. I've read only the NY Times and Politico's coverage of Reid's retirement announcement, but neither speculated on what I can only suspect. My suspicion, however, is hardly out of bounds.

Yesterday I posted a piece entitled "Trying to understand right-wing blogging," which I also tweeted — under "Trying to understand (your) right-wing blogging" — to the right-wing blogger in question, RedState diarist "streiff." My somewhat inquiring tweet was among the most earnest of overtures ever, since, like John Kasich, I'm sure we can all just get along.

My puzzlement over streiff's blogging, noted in the brief post, was genuine, even if my tweeted appeal to streiff was not. How, I wondered, could this blogger so rudely reduce homosexual love and marriage to "ritualized buggery" while going out of his or her way not to offend readers by expurgating "bullshit" — as "bullish**"? Entire philosophical tracts have been written on bullshittery and can be found in any well-inventoried public bookstore — On Bullshit, for instance, by moral philosopher Harry Frankfurt (indeed it made the NYT's bestseller list).

Thus streiff's treatment of "bullshit" as a naughty, schoolyard no-no, complete with asterisked tittering, is intensely puzzling, particularly when coupled with such an offensive epithet as "ritualized buggery."

It was this puzzlement, in my tweet, that I posed to streiff. Again, I didn't really expect an honest, intellectual engagement, since right-wing bloggers have a well-known bias against the inconvenience of debate, which has a nasty tendency to upset their comfortable, cloistered world. And sure enough, in streiff's responding tweet to my "Trying to understand (your) right-wing blogging," my expectation has been fulfilled:

Streiff's tweeted response: "If I had to explain it, you couldn't understand."

This morning Charles Krauthammer goes on a handicapping spree in the GOP's presidential dunderdome, and what a delightful frolic it is.

He begins by giving Marco Rubio slightly better odds than he does Jeb Bush — 3:1 vs. 7:2, respectively. An aside: As entertainment, Krauthammer's analysis struggles for supremacy over David Brooks' latest, which argues that the presidential race is, in its general election terms, "starting on level ground," because "crucial swing voters … are not into redistribution." His analysis seems to be that of a buggy race, and it's jockey Brooks who's wearing the blinders.

But back to Krauthammer. Only Charles would list Bush's chief asset — that of a swelling war chest — under liabilities. It's a shrewd switcheroo on Krauthammer's part; he doesn't really call Bush's midas touch a liability, he merely concedes that Bush's name — which is the liability — "helps him raise tens of millions of dollars." To subsume such a monstrously tangible advantage under a rather vague negativity is an admirable rhetorical gimmick, though.

Our plucky handicapper concludes by observing: "Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum and John Kasich — still below radar. If they surface, they’ll be featured in the next racing form."

With a confidence bordering on epistemological certainty we can dispense with the first three, although Kasich remains a ringer. Last night, on C-Span, I caught part of his recent talk at a New Hampshire event, and I must say the man has potential. Kasich was positively brimming with his chief assets: down-home folksiness, simplicity of style and an aggressive humility, all tailored to dupe the rubes into believing that the commonsensical Everyman (which is to say, Kasich) can just Get 'Er Done.

"I’m an unorthodox politician because I’m an ordinary person in big job," said the Ohio governor several times in a variety of reiterations. It was also noteworthy that his favorite tag line in discussions of complicated and contentious issues was, "Plain and simple." His audience seemed to believe it because, I dare say, Kasich believed it. His is a resurrection of Goldwater's demagogic dictum: "The big trouble with the so-called liberal today is that he doesn't understand simplicity."

John Kasich's chief liability is, however, Jeb Bush's asset, as so shrewdly underplayed by Charles Krauthammer.